Faith of Our Mothers Revisited

Conversations with my cousin.

Last week I posted a memory about Mother's Day in the church I grew up attending.  My cousin, June Davis Fish, regularly messages me about my posts.  Last week she did not, so I got worried. I messaged her to make sure she is okay and our conversation went something like this.  

June:  "Yes, I  am OK. Thanks for checking. I did see the blog about your mother.  I remember now why I didn't comment.  Lately,  I have been having an inner struggle with any post or comment about the Father God even though they are talking about 'his' love and grace as opposed to the 'fundamental God' of law and punishment."

Me:    "I better go back and read my blog.  I rarely refer to God as Father unless it is in the context of somebody else's speech."

June:  "I don't think you did say Father God.  Some have said Papa and Daddy as if that makes 'him' less patriarchal and more loving. I just want to scream at them, Papa, Daddy, Father, ... where the hell is Mother God?  Anyway, that is the foundation for why I didn't comment on your Mother's Day Blog.  I guess I was pissed that only on one day of the year the women/Mothers get any recognition and are allowed to preform certain duties and even then they had to clean up.  Understand me, it was not your blog but how 'gracious' for the men of the church to condescend to 'honor' the women on their one day of the year, Mother's Day.  Without women how would men become fathers?  Without a Sacred Feminine Mother could Father God be a father? I didn't want to comment because it would only have sounded like I was ranting against you and your blog, which certainly wasn't what I felt."

Me:  "I think you got the point.  One day of the year the women serve communion.  An honor the men of the church usually reserved for themselves and the women still prepared and cleaned up.  As a child I was indignant.  P!@#$% off did't happen until I was older and saw how systemic this marginalization is.  Before my book was published a man was asked to write an endorsement.  He said he could not because he detected, 'An echo of frustration.' I thought, 'Wow, I am a pretty good writer if all he detected was and echo of frustration because I am, 'F@#$%^& P!@#$% Off.'" 

June:  "I am getting new perspectives on a lot of old fundamental teachings. It has been difficult to throw off old religious programming, but once I get going on it, it has been freeing and peaceful."

Me:    "One of the things I am hoping the book will accomplish is to get people to question all of these old fundamental teachings.  That is why the subtitle is, Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women.   

Gratitude to my cousin!

When I first started writing last weeks blog I purposefully took my anger out of my writing.  I edited myself as so many women do.  I wanted the post to be more about my wonderful mother than about my anger.  Thanks to June, what I feel about that experience came to the surface. My nephew once asked me, "If women cook every day, why are the best chefs men?" This was when Julia Child was the only woman chef on television.  My answer, "What men do is considered more valuable than what women do. 

On those Mother's Days, it was an honor for the deaconesses to do the deacons job of serving communion.  The deacons would not condescend to doing the job of the deaconesses.  

Women's Work

I think about the value ascribed to "women's work" by patriarchy and I am disheartened. The healing of Peter's mother-in-law is recorded in the canonical Gospels.  She is said to get up and serve after being healed.  The word, diakonei translated as serve, in reference to Peter's nameless mother-in-law is translated as minister in reference to the angels serving Jesus in the wilderness.  Same word, different value and the subject of another blog. 

I ask the same question as June. "Where is Mother God?" Imagine a faith in which female is valued in the same way as male.  

Don't Call Me a Guy

This is a speech I gave last week at Toast Masters (Mavens) 

 Equality of the Genders

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women are created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  

I want to be clear about who is included in the group of women created equal.  We are the white, educated women of property and means.  Men, the working class and poor women are not created equal to us.  They must labor to support themselves, their families and to provide goods and services for us in our pursuit of life, liberty  and happiness.  

Now, I know there are some men who believe that, as we form this more perfect union, women should not rule over men.  John Adams, bless his heart, in a letter to Abigail, while we were writing the Deceleration of Independence asked, "In the new code of laws I know it will be necessary for you to write, I ask that you remember the men, and be more generous and favorable to us than you ancestors. Do not put unlimited power into the hands of  the wives.  Give up the harsh title of mistress for the more tender and endearing one of friend.  Do not give power to vicious, lawless women to use us cruelly with impunity.  Women of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat men only as vassals of the female sex."  Abigail was swift to let John know that the revolutionary war was not fought to prove that all men were created equal.  Abigail replied, "As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh."

Argument From Creation

Man clearly was not created equal to woman as demonstrated by the second story of creation, found in the book of Genesis.  He was created from the dust of the earth,  He was put in the garden of God to tend it, but was incapable of the task, so woman was created.  She was created superior to man, not from the dust of the earth but from living flesh.  She is the final and crowning achievement in God's act of creation!

Woman was endowed with the almost God-like ability to produce life, with the assistances of the tinniest male seed.  And where would we be if one women had not been courageous enough to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  She wanted to be more like God.  She wanted to be wise and so she took and ate while the man sat passively by and ate the fruit she gave him.  The fruit he had been told not to eat.  Woman had not been created when that command was given.  The truth is, life as we know it, could not have existed within the confines of the garden.

Using Our Brains

Does this argument sound absurd?  The Declaration of Independence written only for white, women of property.  Men created as lesser human beings than women.  Women divinely ordained to rule over men.  But the reverse of these arguments are some of the arguments used by patriarchy to marginalize and control women.

Women and people of color read the gender specific language of the Declaration of Independence and think, "Oh, that means me."  But it doesn't.  John Adams thought it was laughable that his wife Abigail requested that laws be written to protect women from the cruelty of vicious, lawless men and to this day the Equal Rights Amendment has not been passed.

The second story of creation, in the book of Genesis, has been interpreted to prove that men should rule over women.  That women are responsible for the sin in the world.  That it is God's will that women should suffer in childbirth.  This interpretation also implies a literal, historical understand of an ancient story told and reload by an ancient people to explain the world they experienced around them.  It also ignore the simultaneous creation  of female and male, in the divine image, in the first story of creation.  

Language creates reality and "those who control how language is used control the most powerful instrument for shaping human consciousness."  (Kevin Giels. Priscilla Papers vol. 29, no. 1)  If we call human beings mankind, we make invisible everyone who is not male or does not conform to societal norms of what a kind of man is.  If we were to use woman kind to refer to all humanity, men would know they were not included.  It is considered acceptable to insult men by calling them girls or ladies.  Women want to believe that unmanned, manmade, chairman and mankind somehow includes us.  It does not.  Addressing a group of women or a mixed gender group as, "You guys" is culturally acceptable.  Addressing a mixed gender group as, "You gals" is not and you guys is used to refer to groups of women.

Many of us worked in the seventies to change male generic language.  Fireman became fire fighter.  Policeman became law enforcement officer.  Mailman became mail carrier and with the change of language came new career opportunities for women.

The erasure continues.  The original Star Trek used inclusive language but second generation Star Trek does not.  I was in Victoria's Secret and heard a woman's voice say, "Dude, look at this bra."  I looked up expecting to see a girl and boy shopping together.  I saw two girls.  Their culturally encouraged language had erased their gender.  Male generic language, dude, guy brotherhood, mankind simply express male as normative and female as other, non-normative.

To quote Albus Dumbledore, "Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, are our most inexhaustible source of magic.  Capable of both inflecting injury and remedying it." It is sad that John Lennon was killed at such a young age.  He might have learned that we are not a "brotherhood of man." IMAGINE

God is Good

Wonderful News

Yesterday I learned that Illumination Book Award, awarded my book a Gold Medal in the Bible study category.  I am so happy! I had a long walk with God this morning and thanked her for this award as conformation and assurance that I am following the path I am called to follow.  (FYI, I don't think God is gendered but I like to call her she, just to mix things up.) A link to the award is below.

http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1904

Book Trailer

June 1 is the official publication for my book.  Please take a look at my book trailer.

My Book Cover

The Bloody Halo

Marg Herder, Director of Public Information for the EEWC Christian Feminism Today asked me some important questions about the image on the cover of my book. I am happy to answer her questions and explain what this image represents to me.  She asks, "What is the meaning of the blood dripping halo?" The first time I was molested by a "man of God" was at church camp.  Many of the campers and counselors were in the pool playing volley ball and someone  grabbed me between my legs. I didn't know who had done it.  I jumped out of the pool and told the female counselors what had happened.  I thought they would tell the director and he would find out who it was.  One of counselors was the wife of the director.  Later that evening the director apologized for grabbing me and told me he was surprised at my reaction.  I guess he thought I would like it.   

Molestation

Webster's Dictionary gives this definition for molest, "To bother, annoy or persecute: to accost sexually.  This happened five different times.  Two camp directors, one church pastor, one youth minister and one regional pastor.  Each time left my teenage self feeling guilty, dirty and ashamed as if my very presence had made these "men of God sin." I had never shared this with anyone until I shared it with Marg, April 21 of this year.

Healing

Thanks in large part to the feminists in my life I have learned that this was not my fault.  Those men, who my parents and I trusted are the shame.  The bloody halo represents the pain I carried for years as a result of the actions of those molesters who pass themselves off as "men of God." 

In my next post I will address Marg's question, "Why use a white woman model, blond hair and blue eyes? This book is about middle eastern women."  

Christian Right is Wrong

Fundamentalist Christians

March 17th is my birthday.  As is my habit I decided to go to the cemetery to visit the graves of my parents.  I try not to go during the week after the time I was sitting at their graves and the sprinklers came on.  To get to the cemetery I had to drive past the church I went to all my growing up years.  I was feeling very nostalgic so I decided to stop for services.  

The male generic language was not a surprise just disappointing.  Especially, "Greet each other with a brotherly kiss."  My first shock was how few people were at church. I remember it as a large congregation.  My second shock was when the minister announced, "Bring a friend to church Sunday" and then asked the congregation to raise their hand if they had friends who were going to hell.  I tried to keep the shook from showing on my face as everyone raised their hands.  "Well," he said, "bring them to church and get them saved."  

My final shock came during the sermon.  The minister said, "God instituted capital punishment because murder is an assault against God's image."  I wrote his statement on the back of the bulletin  because I couldn't believe what I had just heard.  I wanted to ask about the sixth commandment, "you shall not kill."  Or, Jesus admonition to love your neighbor as yourself.  Or, what about the image of God in the person being executed?  

Unfundamentalist Christians

There are many unfundamentalist  Christian groups.  One on Facebook calls themselves Unfundamentalist Christians.  There is also, the Christian Left, Christians For Biblical Equality and The Evangelical, Ecumenical Women's Caucus-Christian Feminist Today to name a few.  They proclaim respect, inclusion, non-judgement, forgiveness and so much more that reflects and represents my faith.  I wrote the book, Prostitutes, Virgins and Mothers: Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women because I felt like my religion had been hijacked by fundamentalist.  

I will not go back to that church. I choose to believe in a God who would be just as disappointed with the male generic language, just as shocked by the judgement on the lives of other people and just as shocked to hear that the loving creator had instituted capital punishment.   
         

Don't call me "guy."

I am not a guy.

Yesterday I watched Sunday Morning, a CBS television magazine.  As they flashed pictures of events from 2013 on the screen a picture of Margaret Thatcher appeared.  The word used to describe her career was, "Statesman."   I was very disappointed.  I thought they knew better.  

I am not a kind of a man!

I also watched part of a program on The History Channel called Mankind: The History of All of Us.  If they mean all men than the title was appropriate.  During the time I watched the program I saw many women feeding children or killed by invading armies but there was no mention of the contributions of women to history.  Maleness is not the normative gender for the human race.  

Language creates reality.  Male generic language erases femaleness from our vocabulary and our consciousness.  

Not Counting Woman and Children

Each of the four gospels record an event where large numbers of people were fed. The story of the loaves and the fishes is found in Mark 6:32-44, Matthew 14:14-21, Luke 9:10-17 and John 6:8-20.     John says it was people who were fed.  Luke and Mark say it was five thousand men.  Matthew also says five thousand men were fed.  But Matthew adds the phrase, "Not counting women and children."  If Matthew had not added that phrase we might be left to believe only men followed Jesus.  Male generic language erases the presence of women and their children.  We look for ourselves in Paul's writing to the brothers and we add sisters believing that we must have been included.  Every time we call women "guy" or "dude" or assume that women are included under the umbrella of mankind we diminish and erase ourselves, our mothers, our daughters, our sisters and our friends.  I think women are too wonderful to be erased.    

Biblical Inerrancy

Biblical Inerrancy

I have not blogged for several weeks.  With the help of Cathy Winch and Vanessa Finney of Personhood Press I have been editing my manuscript for Prostitutes,Virgins and Mothers: Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women.  As I come to the end of this process I am compelled to draw a parallel between our editing process and the centuries of copying and recopying the biblical manuscripts. I am staggered by the amount of errors in the manuscript. Errors which either I made or were made by one of the four brilliant women who read and made editorial comments in the manuscript.  I'll tell you one thing I am never using a comma again!

Biblical Infallibility 

Halloween of 2009 a Baptist congregation in Canton, North Carolina used their belief in biblical inerrancy and infallibility to burn Bibles.  

Inerrancy

As Lee Martin McDonald states in The Formation of the Christian Cannon, "Those who would argue for the infallibility or the inerrancy of scripture logically should also claim the same infallibility for the churches in the fourth and fifth centuries, whose decisions and historical circumstances have left us with our present Bible." 

On the website Mainstream Baptist Dr. Bruce Prescott offers a test for "Inerrantist Truthfulness."  He says, "Here's a simple way to tell if you are getting a straight answer about claims for the Bible's inerrancy.  Ask inerrantists the questions listed below.

1. Is the Bible you read and hold in you hands inerrant?  If he says, "No," he is being honest.  If he says, "Yes," ask question 2. 

2. Do all the ancient manuscripts of the Bible say exactly the same thing?  If he says, "Yes," he or she is being honest.  He or she is simply uninformed about the history of the transmission of the Bible and needs to do some study. (2 Timothy 2:15)  If he says, "No," ask question 3.

3. How can you honestly say the Bible is inerrant when you know that all the manuscripts of the Bible have errors in them?  If he says, "The Original Manuscripts were inerrant."  Ask question 4.

4. Where are the "original manuscripts?" If he admits, "They have all been lost," or "They no longer exist on earth." Ask question 5.

5. Since God didn't bother to see that the Bible was preserved inerrantly, why is it necessary to believe it is inerrant?  If he says something like, "So men could be sure of their salvation." Ask Question 6.

6. Do you have to believe the Bible is inerrant to be saved?  If he says, "Yes," ask question 7.  If he says, "No," ask question 8. 

7. Do you have to place you faith in an inerrant book (unseen) before you can have faith in Jesus?  Doesn't that make the Bible an object of faith and another mediator between us and God? (1 Timothy 2:5)  Doesn't that make the Bible an idol?  Or, does belief in inerrancy prove that you are saved and is failure to believe proof that you aren't?  Is that why some inerrantists call Mainstream Baptist infidels? 

8. Why have inerrantist worked of 20 years to exclude Mainstream Baptist, divided the SBC and BGCO, and revise the Baptist Faith and Message to make it say the Bible is inerrant?  Was all the pain this has caused in the lives of God's people and churches really necessary?"   

I know this test doesn't work on several levels and it certainly doesn't work if one believes that it is the first King James translation which is inerrant.  I share it because of my passion for biblical literacy, my new found sensitivity to the errors that can creep into the written word and because of my experience at Liberty University where the doctrine of biblical inerrancy was used like a weapon.    

I also want to say that I found errors in the  questions above.  Some I chose to leave in like Original Manuscripts and original manuscripts.  Others I chose to change like mainsteam to mainstream.  Biblical inerrancy?  I don't think so!  How many errors can you find?

Silenced Women

 

The depressing state of things!  

Yesterday I found this on my Facebook page.  I couldn't believe it was true although the UN Women icon at the bottom of each photo did lend some credibility.  I Googled, "women should" and before I even got to the final "d" the drop down menu read; not be in combat, not preach, not speak in church, be seen and not heard, not work (I am guessing they mean outside the home) not run and stay at home.  Check out http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/10/women-should-ads

So I Googled, "men should" and got always pray, not get married, wear makeup, not wear shorts and pay for dates.

Speak up!

Blatant discrimination and sexism is always shocking to me.  I want to believe it is only the far religious right of any religion and the lunatic fringe who  cling to these attitudes about women.  I showed the post to my husband and he was not surprised.  "What's new?"is all he asked.  In my last blog I wrote of my experience with attempted silencing. Speak up, speak out, be heard, use your voice. 

Silenced no more.

I looked blatant up in the dictionary. Among other definitions I found, "Offensively obtrusive; coarse. Shrill, ranting, angry, combative, strident and more are terms hurled at women who speak up against discrimination and sexism. Women must not be silent.  In the relative safety of the United States  from which I blog I am able to use my voice.  I am compelled to use that voice for women and their children who are silenced.  

Defining My Passion

Religion, Feminism, Justice, Human Trafficking

I have not posted for many days.  One reason is the wonderful time I spent with my great-niece, family and friends.  Another reason was deciding the direction I want to take with this blog.  I have gotten lots of advice.  I spent thirty years flying under the radar, so to speak.  Now I have a blog, a twitter account, a Facebook page, and am working on creating an author's Facebook page.  The initial reason for this social media campaign was to promote my book, Prostitutes, Virgins and Mothers: Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women.  That is still important but I cannot stay silent about some of the things I have learned on social media.

Human Trafficking

I am working with the Riverside County Anti Human Trafficking Task Force.  One of the questions I ask groups to whom I am presenting human trafficking information is, "True or False, a woman's love for her pimp means that she is willingly choosing prostitution?"  Today I read the new Dreamworks movie Turbo uses the term "pimp your shell" to equate improving or making better.  Do the pimps who sell the bodies of others for profit make anything better? 

Religion

I am a Christian.  It is the faith path to which I have been called.  I am a member of the Mid-Valley Interfaith Council in the Coachella Valley.  We are Roman Catholic, Muslim, Latter Day Saint, Independent Catholic, Christ Science, Jewish and more. I am inspired by the ways God has revealed God's self to the others in the group and I always learn something from each meeting.  Yet I read so much snipping about other faith tradition.  If I think I know all the ways God reveals God's Self the
God I think I know is very small.  Is God so small that God only speaks to your religious group?  I do not use pronouns for God.  God does not have genitalia.      

Feminism

I am delighted there are so many thoughtful feminist sisters and brothers taking a stand on human justice issues.  I am also shocked at some of the reactions I read to that work.  Such fear it seems to me but of what exactly?

Justice, Religion, Feminism, Human Trafficking

So I said all that to clarify for myself the work before me, my passions.  They are interpretation of the stories of biblical women from a woman's perspective, Christian Feminism, the end of Human Trafficking/Slavery, Liberty and Justice for all.  

I Am Not A Guy or a Kind of a Man

Mankind I am Not!

I went to the movies the other day and saw the advertisement below.  I was angry, a car "made for mankind."  That leaves me out.  Then I read an interview by Greg Robinson in which he claimed the ad was meant to be "gender neutral."  WHAT!  Does he know what gender neutral means?  Is womankind gender neutral?  Of course not.  No more than mankind is gender neutral.    

Made for Mankind

It is anachronistic to continue to use male generic language as if it is inclusive language.  It is not. My dictionary says, "Mankind, the human race; man taken collectively."  But Womankind is, "Women collectively." I am not women are not men. A change of language is in order.  

Why Do We Need Christian Feminists?

Why We Need Christian Feminists

What male church leaders have had to say about women is truly disturbing.  What some of them say about Feminist is equally disturbing.  In his sermon, New Age Gnostic Feminist and Their Influence on the Church John McArthur informs women that they are confused about their God given roll in the church.  He couples this with a picture of four smiling women from the cover of  Gospel Today

titled, Women Pastors.  He also describes The Center for Research on Women, at Wellesley College as a"deadly think tank" and displays a picture of Hillary Rodham Clinton in a Nazi uniform with a Hitler mustache.  Displaying a picture of Sarah Palin he says, "Even Christian are falling under the spell of the feminist."  I have a feeling Sara doesn't think so, but I don't know for sure.

I am a Christian Feminist 

I am a Christian Feminist because I came to my Feminism through my faith.  I do not believe in a God who discriminates based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else. In her book, In Memory of  Her Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza describes Jesus and His Discipleship of Equals.  I believe in a baptism which erases any form of inequality between male and female.  I believe in beautiful, brilliant women, created in the image and likeness of their creator and not confused about their "God given roll."

Women in Ministry

This is an interesting, reasoned argument for women in ordained ministry.  The scholar is N. T. Wright.